An Introduction to Music Education Methods

What are Kodály, Orff, Suzuki, and Dalcroze - and do you have to choose just one?

Whether you're a parent exploring music lessons for your child, an adult beginner looking to develop your musical skills, a teacher seeking to enrich your practice, or even a professional musician interested in new pedagogical approaches - you may have encountered the names Kodály, Orff, Suzuki and Dalcroze.

We often think of these methods as being for children. However, they can be beneficial at any age and level of experience - they're comprehensive educational philosophies with applications across all ages and skill levels. From early childhood through professional training, these approaches offer valuable insights that can transform how we experience, understand, and create music.

You don't have to commit exclusively to one approach. Most music educators today (including me!) draw from multiple methods, adapting their approach based on learners' needs, goals, and learning environment.

Let's explore each approach - what makes it special, what benefits it offers to different ages, and how it might enhance your musical journey whether you're 5 or 85, beginner or professional.

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🎵 Dalcroze Eurhythmics

Created by Swiss musician Émile Jaques-Dalcroze in the early 20th century, this approach puts movement at the heart of music learning. Dalcroze noticed his conservatory students could write music perfectly on paper but struggled with rhythm and expression in performance. His solution was to get them moving - shoes off, bodies active!

What makes it special:

• Learning through whole-body movement and physical experience

• Develops coordination, musical sensitivity and listening skills simultaneously

• Emphasises feeling and experiencing music before analysing it

• Builds a natural sense of rhythm that stays with you for life

Benefits for different learners:

For children:

• Develops coordination and spatial awareness alongside musical skills

• Helps active children channel energy positively through music

• Builds confidence through creative expression

• Creates lasting neural connections between movement and music

For adult beginners:

• Breaks through inhibitions about music-making

• Addresses rhythmic challenges that many adult learners face

• Provides physical memory for musical concepts

• Offers a refreshing alternative to notation-focused learning

For professionals:

• Enhances performance through better physical awareness

• Improves ensemble skills and responsiveness

• Deepens interpretive capabilities and expressivity

• Offers tools for teaching complex rhythmic concepts

In practice, Dalcroze work might include walking to show pulse while gesturing to show phrasing, using scarves to express melodic contours, or improvising movements in response to harmonic changes. These embodied experiences create an intuitive understanding of music that enhances both learning and performance at any level.

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🧩 Orff Schulwerk

Carl Orff, known for composing "Carmina Burana", believed in making music accessible through play, speech and movement. Working with Gunild Keetman, he developed an approach that starts with natural activities - speaking, singing, clapping, dancing - and gradually builds towards more complex music-making.

What makes it special:

• Begins with speech patterns and natural rhythms

• Uses instruments designed for immediate musical success

• Combines speech, singing, movement and instruments

• Emphasises creation and improvisation from the very beginning

• Focuses on group music-making and cooperation

Benefits for different learners:

For children:

• Builds confidence through immediate success experiences

• Develops teamwork and listening skills through ensemble playing

• Nurtures creativity through improvisation opportunities

• Creates pathways to both traditional and contemporary music styles

For adult beginners:

• Provides accessible entry points without technical barriers

• Builds musical confidence through gradual skill development

• Offers social connection through ensemble playing

• Makes composition and improvisation approachable

For professionals:

• Provides creative teaching tools for students of all levels

• Offers fresh approaches to composition and improvisation

• Enhances ensemble teaching skills

• Reconnects professional musicians with musical play and joy

Orff activities might include layering body percussion patterns, creating ostinatos (repeated musical patterns) on xylophones to accompany songs, or developing movement sequences that express musical structure. The emphasis on creativity and play makes this approach valuable for learners at any stage who want to develop their compositional and improvisational abilities.

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🎶 Kodály Method

Zoltán Kodály, a Hungarian composer and folk music enthusiast, believed music education should be available to everyone. He championed singing as the foundation of all musicianship - an instrument everyone carries with them always.

What makes it special:

• Uses the singing voice as the primary instrument

• Builds on familiar musical material appropriate to age and background

• Introduces concepts in a carefully sequenced order

• Uses hand signs and syllables (do, re, mi) to make abstract concepts concrete

• Develops music reading and writing alongside singing skills

Benefits for different learners:

For children:

• Develops strong aural skills and pitch accuracy

• Builds lifelong singing confidence and technique

• Creates a solid foundation for later instrumental study

• Connects children to cultural heritage through folk songs

For adult beginners:

• Provides structured approach to developing musicianship

• Builds skills that transfer across various musical activities

• Develops the singing voice without requiring prior experience

• Creates strong sight-reading abilities

For professionals:

• Enhances inner hearing and sight-reading

• Strengthens teaching of theory through practical application

• Provides tools for teaching aural skills systematically

• Offers solutions for addressing advanced choral challenges

A Kodály-inspired session might involve discovering the pentatonic scale through folk songs, using hand signs to physically experience intervallic relationships, or breaking down complex rhythms using syllables. These approaches work equally well for young beginners and advanced musicians seeking to deepen their understanding of music theory through practical application.

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🎻 Suzuki Method

Shinichi Suzuki, a Japanese violinist, made a revolutionary observation: every Japanese child learns to speak Japanese fluently! He reasoned that if we can master something as complex as language through listening and imitation, we could learn music the same way.

What makes it special:

• Learning by ear before learning to read music (like speaking before reading)

• Emphasis on daily listening to develop musical memory and sensitivity

• Supportive learning environment with positive reinforcement

• Group experiences complement individual instruction

• Focus on developing beautiful tone from the beginning

Benefits for different learners:

For children:

• Develops exceptional listening skills and memory

• Creates a supportive triangle of teacher-parent-child

• Builds technical facility from very young ages

• Fosters community through group classes

For adult beginners:

• Builds confidence through mastery of small steps

• Develops listening skills often overlooked in traditional approaches

• Creates a supportive community of fellow learners

• Emphasises tone production from the beginning

For professionals:

• Provides systematic teaching sequences for technical development

• Offers tools for teaching tone production and expressivity

• Presents models for creating supportive learning communities

• Demonstrates how to build repertoire systematically

While originally developed for children, Suzuki principles have been successfully adapted for adult beginners and professionals seeking to refine their technique or teaching. The emphasis on listening, tone production, and breaking skills into manageable steps creates a supportive framework for learners at any stage.

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Other Methods and Philosophies

There are many other philosophies that shape music education. Here are just a few:

• Edwin Gordon's Music Learning Theory (MLT)

  • Gordon spent decades researching how we learn music, developing a comprehensive theory of audiation - thinking in music the way we think in language.

    
    

  • Benefits across age groups:

    • For children: Developing flexible musical thinking during the critical period when aptitude is still developing

    • For adult beginners: Building strong foundations in musical comprehension, not just performance

    • For professionals: Providing research-based tools for addressing gaps in musical understanding and teaching

    
    

    
    

• World Music Pedagogy (WMP)

  • This approach recognises music as a global human expression and introduces learners to diverse musical traditions.

    
    

  • Benefits across age groups:

    • For children: Developing open ears and cultural awareness from the beginning

    • For adult beginners: Offering multiple entry points into music-making through diverse traditions

    • For professionals: Expanding musical vocabulary and performance techniques beyond Western classical traditions

      
      

      
      

• Waldorf-inspired music education

  • In Waldorf education, music is woven into daily rhythms and integrated with storytelling, movement, and seasonal celebrations.

    
    

  • Benefits across age groups:

    • For children: Experiencing music as an integral part of life, not an isolated subject

    • For adult beginners: Connecting music to broader human experiences and natural cycles

    • For professionals: Finding fresh inspiration by connecting music to other art forms and life experiences

  
  

  
  

• Montessori music education

  • Maria Montessori believed in sensitive periods for developing musical awareness and created materials that allow for self-directed exploration of musical concepts.

    
    

  • Benefits across age groups:

    • For children: Developing independence and sensory refinement through exploration

    • For adult beginners: Building confidence through self-paced discovery

    • For professionals: Gaining insights into sequential skill development and material design

    
    

Each of these approaches brings something unique, and all aim to make music accessible, expressive and rooted in experience.

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Do You Have to Choose Just One?

Absolutely not. All of these methods are just different ways of entering the same musical world. Some students flourish with more of a focus on structure and sequencing, others benefit from more movement and play.

Finding your path:

• For parents: Consider your child's learning style, interests, and personality when exploring options. A physically active child might thrive with Dalcroze movement activities, while a systematic learner might benefit from Kodály's sequential approach.

• For adult beginners: Reflect on your goals, previous experiences with music, and what aspects of music-making most appeal to you. If you're intimidated by reading notation, Suzuki or Orff approaches might provide accessible entry points.

• For teachers: Expanding your toolkit with techniques from multiple methods allows you to meet diverse student needs and keep your teaching fresh and engaging.

• For professionals: Exploring different pedagogical approaches can revitalise your performance, address technical challenges, and expand your teaching capabilities.

  
  

The most effective musicians and teachers often draw from multiple methods, adapting their approach based on specific goals and contexts, while maintaining the core principle they all share: making musical learning meaningful, joyful, and accessible. However, some teachers are certified specialists in one or more of these methods, so if you are particularly interested in one of them, you can hone in on that.

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How I Teach

If you're new here, hi! I'm Kayla Collingwood - a New Zealand-born, Paris-based classical singer, educator, and creator.

In my lessons and workshops, I draw from all of these traditions, along with insights from voice work, theatre, storytelling, and my years of experience performing and teaching. I don't follow any single method rigidly. Instead, I aim to build lessons that:

• Meet each learner where they are developmentally, regardless of age

• Develop genuine musicality, not just technical skills

• Make music learning playful and joyful

• Connect musicians to diverse musical traditions

• Build skills that transfer across all musical (and life!) activities

I teach adults and children in Paris and online (depending on ages and the lesson type). I offer 3 streams of lessons:

• Singing lessons - any genre, with a classical foundation

• Voice/stagecraft for wellbeing - personal development classes drawing from principles of arts training!

• Classical Music Immersion - from babies and young children in éveil musical classes, to school-aged children, teens, adults wanting to engage with classical music, and professionals seeking to dive deeper into repertoire knowledge and music history.

I offer a personalised, joyful way into music that supports long-term growth and expression!

👉 Explore my lessons here or get in touch for more information!